Last Word: Out of the embers of Charlottesville

FILE -- Riots at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2018. Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for Senate in Virginia, likes to engage the racial fringes of his party, creating a dilemma for mainstream GOP leaders wary of his views. (Edu Bayer/The New York Times)

Photo: EDU BAYER, NYT

Out of the embers of Charlottesville

The hate, ugliness and violence of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., one year ago this weekend, is nothing to celebrate. It needed to be condemned in unequivocal terms — something President Trump shamefully failed to do. So here we go again, with the racists and anti-Semites planning a rally Sunday within shouting distance of the White House, having been denied a permit in Charlottesville. No one is under the illusion that racism ever disappeared from American society, but the code words, stereotypes and fears are returning in audacious ways.

Trump has set a distressing tone with his vilification of immigrants and his racially tinged denunciation of certain prominent African Americans as intellectually inferior — as well as his vitriol against black NFL players who are protesting injustice during the national anthem. A prime-time host on Trump’s favorite network, Fox News, bemoaned this week that the “America we know and love” is being lost by “massive demographic changes” due, in large part, to immigration.

The forces of racial resentment neither began nor ended in Charlottesville.

Before joining the opinion pages, he directed the newspaper’s East Bay news coverage. He started at The Chronicle in 1990 as an assistant city editor.

John began his journalism career as a reporter for the Red Bluff Daily News. Two years later, he was promoted to the Washington, D.C., bureau of the newspaper’s parent company, Donrey Media Group. After that, he worked as a general assignment reporter for the Associated Press in Philadelphia and as a statehouse reporter and assistant city editor for the Denver Post.

He graduated from Humboldt State University in 1977 with a degree in journalism. He received a Distinguished Alumni Award from HSU in 2009 and was the university’s commencement speaker in 2010.